


Ostara

by eloquated



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Easter, M/M, Ostara, Pagan Festivals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 01:52:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18110837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Like every year of Sherlock’s life, the Ostara celebration had been a full day event. As a child, he’d chased after painted eggs with the other young ones, and bringing them to his brother to show off.  Mycroft would laugh at his exuberance, forever amused by the impish child.But that had been a long time ago...A moment before the start of the Ostara celebration (sequel toSolstice)





	Ostara

**Author's Note:**

> Finally the return of some warmer weather, and with it, the desire to plant the Holmes boys back in their coven!
> 
> You don't have to have read Solstice first, but it might help!

Against the coming of the night, the vast ring of flaming torches held back the dark.  They flickered and crackled merrily, a bright and welcoming sight as people began to arrive at Musgrave.

Like every year of Sherlock’s life, the Ostara celebration had been a full day event. As a child, he’d chased after painted eggs with the other young ones; collecting them in a careful pouch made of the front of his shirt, and bringing them to his brother to show off.  Mycroft would laugh at his exuberance, forever amused by the impish child.

But that had been a long time ago.

And the man standing within the ring of golden light seemed entirely unlike the brother he loved.

Huffing to himself, Sherlock dug one heel into the bale of hay he had commandeered for a seat, his elbow propped on the raised jut of his knee.  It was an unseasonably warm Ostara, and the hay crinkled under him, rustling, and warmer than the folding chairs that some of the other coven members had chosen.

  
It smelled earthy, and sweet, even though the prickly edges jabbed uncomfortably into his thighs.  

But his vantage point offered him a perfect view of his brother.

Lover.

The man he had been forced to share at every coven gathering since Yule.  His Mycroft, the Holly King-- and Litha couldn’t come soon enough. Not for Sherlock, who wanted nothing more than to grab his brother by the hand and drag him around the side of the house before the ceremony started.

Greedy and possessive in love, he was so very tired of sharing his brother’s attention.  Mycroft should be with him, and only -- always-- forever him.

Not helping Anthony and Eliza arrange the ceremonial circle, for a right he scarcely believed in.

Sherlock knew better than to breathe a word of that, however.  His mummy would never forgive him.

At the head of the circle, a great iron brazier glowed to life.  It smoked, and turned the air thick and heady with the fresh greens laid across the surface of the brilliant coals.  Sage and sweetgrass overwhelmed the cool night air with fragrant smoke. Sherlock knew it would be stifling within the circle, but thankfully they weren’t ready to start.  Not yet.

Not everyone had arrived.

With a lazy sprawl, Sherlock draped himself across the firm, rustling hay, his fingers worked deep into his messy hair.  The torchlight illuminated his brother in gold and copper; a hot, living light that gleamed on his short beard, and the soft, shorn edges of his curls, where they’d started to grow out.

Sherlock wanted to leap across the ceremonial divide and bury his hands in those curls.  He wanted to muss them, and mark him, until all of Mycroft’s tidy lines and angles had been left in disarray.

He wanted to pull him out into the field beyond the firelight.  To press him down into the cold spring soil, until their skins were dark with filthy handprints.  

Biting his lower lip, Sherlock allowed himself a moment to gaze out into the dark, imagining.

Ostara was all about the returning heat after the long winter cold-- what better way to celebrate the Wheel, and the Earth, but to return to it?  And he would show Mycroft that he was not their king. He would never be.

He was Sherlock’s.  

Claimed when he was a baby, his tiny fingers reaching for his brother, because he knew.  He had always known. That this was what they were meant to be. Indivisible.

Sherlock smirked to himself, slanted and unwontedly soft.  Mycroft would find him when the ceremony was over. And Sherlock would remind him why a celebration of fertility-- eggs and bunnies and the heat of new spring sun-- could never be complete without their own communion.

Nobody would be able to see them.  And it would be like the Beltane when Sherlock was seventeen, and he’d followed his brother out beyond the revelling, into the dark.  The night he’d proven the truth he’d always known. That--

“If you stare at me any harder, brother mine, we won’t need the brazier.”  Mycroft’s voice broke his reverie with a soft, lilting tease. Sherlock smirked up at him, and sprawled out on his back, leaving only a thin strip of the bale for his brother.  

From the angle, firelit and copper bright, Mycroft looked the part of the king.  Someone-- probably Eliza-- had placed a wreath of new spring flowers in his auburn hair, and the petals were snow white and lilac purple amidst the strands.

Sherlock’s fingers itched to touch.  Achingly hard against the seam of his trousers, and uncaring for the spectacle (as if anyone would notice.  They were all too busy preparing the long, trestle tables for the feast) he wanted to drag his hands through Mycroft’s hair roughly.  To push his crown into the dirt, until he was just like him.

“You don’t believe any of this nonsense any more than I do.”  He scoffed under his breath, and reached for Mycroft’s hand when the elder brother sat down in the offered space.  Their hips touched, and Sherlock could feel the feverish warmth of him through their clothes.

“No.  But this is important to our family.  And it’s our traditions, Sherlock. I do respect them, even if I don’t agree with them.”

“A sacrilegious king, what a novel idea.  Will you bequeath your exalted attention on any of the desperate maidens tonight, oh Lord?”  His voice dripped sarcasm, and Sherlock despised the jealous, bitter note that Mycroft would certainly notice.

The faintly arched eyebrow, and lifted corner of his mouth, made it clear that he had noticed.

“It’s only until Midsummer, Lock.  Then I can put this all behind me.”  

“And you’re going back to London in the morning.”

Mycroft sighed, and worked one hand into the tiny space between them, his long fingers stroking idle pattern against Sherlock’s palm.  It tingled, and Sherlock snapped his hand shut to trap his fingers.

His.  Always his.

“And you’ll be going back to Cambridge the day after.”

“You could let me come with you.  Mummy won’t care if I’m in London with you.  My responsible big brother, who won’t let any harm come to me.”

Mycroft’s stomach tugged, sharp and warm, and he twisted his hand to thread their fingers together.  The want in his brother’s clear, blue-green eyes outshone the firelight, and Mycroft wanted suddenly-- impossibly-- to lean over and kiss him.  

As he’d wanted to do since he arrived that morning.  

Sherlock was beautiful, always so very beautiful.  The loose collar of his shirt bared the hollow of his throat, and Mycroft wanted to taste the shadows that pooled there.  “You could. If you wanted.”

“I do.  Don’t you?”

“You know I do.  It’s been too long since we’ve seen one another, but surely you don’t think I’ve forgotten?  I would never. Could never. We belong together.”

Sparks in the brazier, and leaping, brilliant into the darkening night.

And Sherlock could feel the reflection of them in his blood.  His brother’s voice low and quiet, finding pressure points in the armour Sherlock had began to assemble at university.  And he still wanted to pull him out into the darkness when Mycroft nudged him over and stretched out along the bale of hay beside him.

He would.  Later. And Mycroft’s lips would taste of the heady red wine, and Sherlock would fill his pockets with dark chocolate eggs from the feast.

They would have their own celebration.

_“What is your name, and why do you approach our circle?”_  
_“I am Sherlock Holmes, come to celebrate this blessed day.”_  
_“And how do you enter the circle?”_  
_“With perfect love, and perfect trust.”  
“Come, and be welcome.”_


End file.
